Still on Fire
by MiniJen
Summary: The events of Catching Fire and Mockingjay never occurred. Years after the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta's daughter is reaped for the 100th Hunger Games, and Katniss must do everything in her power to keep her daughter alive. Katniss' POV.


_**Still on Fire**_

_Full Description: The events of Catching Fire and Mockingjay never happened. The Hunger Games are still in place and its now 26 years after the events of the first book. Katniss and Peeta are married and have two children: an 8 year old boy, Puri and a 16 year old girl, Ember. The basis for this story (told through Katniss' POV) is that Ember is reaped for the 100__th__ Hunger Games and Katniss, as her daughter's mentor, must helplessly watch as her daughter tries to survive the fourth Quarter Quell, for which the Capitol has an especially cruel twist planned._

_And so, let the games begin again…_

* * *

A light breeze whips through the trees, a mockingjay calls out in the distance in a soft song. These are the only things that can be heard, since our tread is so light that it's completely inaudible. She doesn't it know it though, but I can also hear breath, slight and tense as I watch her eyes lock onto the doe several feet ahead of us hidden, pacing in the green of the woods. I know I used to do the same thing when I hunted here when I was her age.

"Now," I whisper just loud enough for her to hear me. With one swift, silent motion, she pulls an arrow from her quiver, mounts it on the bow and firmly takes aim at the deer's eye. Beads of sweat forming on her brow, she hesitates, but only for a moment, and sends the arrow flying. It hits its mark perfectly.

She lowers her bow, sighs in relief, smiles and looks to me for approval. "Perfect," I say, returning her smile. "It's not easy getting a deer. I've only shot a handful myself."

"Thanks mom," She says, finding her knife as we walk toward the dying animal. Our mood changes to somber as she gives the creature the death blow, one of mercy.

Knowing we can't possibly take the thing back in one piece, lest starving people and peacekeepers alike sic us, we manage to split it into more sizable pieces and hide them in our game bags. What we can't fit we leave there. We don't really need the food anyway. Our purpose in hunting it was so she could take down her first deer. But most of it can be easily traded in the Hob and the rest can be divided among my regular cases of people we feed with our game.

We have more food than we could ever eat, considering that Peeta and I are both victors, and both living under the same roof. Happily married, somehow.

The first few months after the Hunger Games were hard. After the Capitol's cameras had left, Peeta and I no longer had to pretend that we were the star-crossed lovers who won the games, but I knew that Peeta had never pretended in the first place. Which made me feel all the more guilty about everything that had happened between us. Of course things were no better between Gale and I. I had wanted to tell him that I didn't really have feelings for Peeta, that I had played along just to make it home. But really, I had no idea how I really felt for Peeta at the time. For what seemed like ages I didn't really speak to either of them, instead spending my comfortable, empty days with Prim and my mother, trying to block it all out and let everything return to normal. But of course, the Victory Tour forbade that.

Knowing that the Capitol would be expecting us to play the lovers card, we did throughout the tour. Privately, however Peeta and I decided to start anew, this time as friends. Even after we returned to District 12, we remained on good terms. Until one day, without warning or explanation, we both found that we were more than just friends. That we needed each other to cope with the horror we had experienced and to chase away the nightmares. That one couldn't live without the other.

What had been an act in the arena became real. Only this time, we were free to do things the way we wanted to. To have a real, true and deep relationship.

Needless to say that whatever I had previously had with Gale diminished. I still wanted to be friends though, and I knew he did too. But when I tried to tell him this, the look in his eyes was of deep sorrow and heartbreak. I knew I couldn't put him through more pain and so we severed all ties to each other, bringing much despair to both of us.

In the meantime, my relationship with Peeta thrived through warm summer evenings spent gazing at the stars, cold winter days with me watching him paint, and every other experience that we went through together.

However, the Games broke through even that. All too soon, Peeta and I along with Haymitch, had to return to the Capitol to be mentors for the next set of District 12 tributes. What made it worse however, that our first year as mentors fell on the year of the 75th Hunger Games, the third Quarter Quell. The special "twist" the Capitol had in store for that one was the age for tributes was changed from ages 12 to 18, to ages 5 to 30, making the pool of tributes much larger and much more devious considering that a young child could be killed at the hands of a much older, much more dangerous adult. So few people were safe from this reaping that it was almost impossible to congregate all those eligible into the square. So many people who I knew, who I cared about, were among the hundreds of faces that day including, of course, Prim, Madge, even Gale, who at 18 should have been free from the reaping, many with whom I've traded with at the Hob, and countless others. However, luckily for my sanity, no one I knew personally was chosen. The female tribute was a wispy woman in her early 20's with large eyes from the Seam, but what struck my heart was that the boy tribute was only seven, and small at that, scared out of his wits.

And though Peeta and I did everything we could to keep those two alive, Haymitch was unconcerned with whether they lived or died, saying "I've done my tour of duty with you two." I wondered if I should have just let them go as well, but I couldn't very well leave them to die, especially the little boy, and neither could Peeta. But though we tried as hard as we could, they were both among the first few to die in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia.

Guilt weighed heavy on my shoulders for the next several weeks after the games, as I thought it was my fault that they had died, that I didn't do my job as a mentor well enough. But Peeta assured me that it wasn't, that the other tributes were stronger and larger. And after a while, I felt better about it, but not much.

The succession of Hunger Games that followed each brought new horrors. New tributes who we tried our best to keep alive. New deaths to watch with each one. After a while, the pain became less immediate, but it was still there and I knew that the name of each dead tribute I mentored would remain encased in my memory.

There was one bright spot among the dreariness of the Games and that was Peeta. His consoling words and calming smile could bring me back from any kind of depression.

Seven years passed after the 74th games. Seven Hunger Games, and several hundred times he asked me the same thing. If I would marry him. I had made it firm that I would probably never marry and absolutely never have children, since they would be vulnerable to the reapings each year regardless of their parents Victor status. Yet Peeta's persuasive ways and my ever growing admiration for him made it hard to say no. And so it was on one crisp autumn day that, as we sat watching the leaves fall in the glow of the morning that I finally said yes.

We decided against having a big ceremony in the Capitol, instead having what would be considered a very simple wedding to them, but in District 12, our wedding was immense simply because of how many people showed up. Cinna designed me a simple, yet beautiful dress that was just perfect for the occasion. It was a day that I would never forget; the toasting, the gathering of family and friends, and everything else that happened that day. For the first time in a long time, I was truly happy.

Though it did not remain as strong, the feeling never really went away. Simply being around Peeta gave me a sense that everything would be all-right in the end, no matter how much suffering we endured. Years came and went and we spent whatever few happy days we had in District 12 together. Thankfully, we were able to keep both of our houses in the Victor's Village, upon Haymitch's request, so Peeta's family was able to remain in his house, while he moved into mine with my mother, Prim, and Prim's husband, Alec, whom she had known since she was a child and a perfect match for my sweet, lovesick sister.

Throughout the next three years after our marriage, Peeta pressured me for children. I refused, not about to be hooked into this one as easily as I had been when I married him. I tried hard to persuade him away from the foolish idea; with the argument that there was a very real possibility that our children could become tributes in the Hunger Games and that neither one of us could bear to watch that happen. But his opinion on the matter did not change.

I could tell that he pined for them, though his words, his paintings everything. And it did break my heart that I was denying him this simple request. So I agreed to one child. But only one.

The feeling of being pregnant was unsettling to me. I could feel the baby inside of me, moving, alive. And I hated it. Peeta would tell me that it would all be over in nine months, but they seemed to drag on forever. The fear of giving birth refused to go away. That is until, I held my daughter in my arms for the first time.

Dark hair, already thick at birth, olive Seam skin, features incredibly similar to mine. The only thing that was different was her father's bright blue eyes. Never before had I seen such a beautiful child. Even Prim wasn't as lovely as her when she was born. Choosing a name befitting for her wasn't easy, but in the end, we came up with something perfect. As a nod to the beautiful costumes Cinna designed for me during my Hunger Games, and the title that the outfits got me, "the girl on fire", we named her after the warm, glowing remains of a fire, Ember. We decided to give her the middle name Rue, as a respectful homage to my fallen ally from District 11. Ember Rue Mellark.

She grew in leaps and bounds, with an open, kind heart, but also a curious and adventurous spirit. As soon as she learned how to walk, I already had her in the woods beyond District 12 with me, learning the bare bones of hunting, much to Peeta's disapproval.

The more I grew to love being a mother, the more I began to think about having another child. I loved Ember dearly, but perhaps I had been wrong about having only one child. And so, to Peeta's shock I asked him if we could have another. And we did, when Ember was about 8 years old, I gave birth to a son whom I let Peeta name Puri, after his dead grandfather.

Both grew and we were a happy little family, I could suppose. Ember took after me, wanting to learn how to hunt and all about the woods, while Puri was a baker, much akin to Peeta. Our equal love for both of them never wavered though.

Yet the Hunger Games interrupted even this relative peace. Having to leave them each year to head to the Capitol was never easy, what with their tearing eyes and many questions. We did tell them eventually, the story of our Games, why there were two victors that year instead of one, and why we had to go to the Capitol every year for the Games. We would leave them with Prim and Alec though, so I knew they would be in good hands until we returned. And every time we did, things would return to normalcy for a time.

All too soon, however, the day I had dreaded since they were born came. The day Ember turned twelve and was eligible for the reaping. I knew too well that if her name was drawn, there would be nothing I could do to protect her. I wouldn't be able to volunteer for her like I had for Prim all those years ago. I would be forced to watch my beautiful daughter suffer through the Capitol's torturous games, and if she died… I couldn't even bare to think about that, for either of them. _No, _I thought on that first reaping day, when Ember stood among the twelves with her name entered only once in the girl's glass ball. _It won't be her. She's only in there once. _But hadn't I thought the same thing on the day Prim was reaped?

Luckily, Ember's name was not reaped on that day. It hasn't, even up to today. Instead, Ember is still alive and well, now sixteen, with only three years left until she's free from the reapings. But by then, Puri will be at risk to become a tribute. It seems like it is a cycle without end, and that the odds are never guaranteed to be in their favor, our ours.

**AU: So, sorry this first chapter is kind of empty of any action or anything like that and its mostly just backstory. The next chapters will finally get into the story, I promise! Write a review if you'd like, but please, no flames! :D **


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